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Passionate Canadian paid with his life

Thomas D’Arcy McGee was a man of passionate — if not always consistent — convictions who had a huge impact on Canada.

Born in Ireland, he left there at the age of 17 in 1842 for North America. Like many, he arrived in the United States, eventually moving to Canada.

Politically, his journey zig-zagged with him.

In his early days he was a revolutionary, trying to overthrow British rule in Ireland. As an immigrant to the U.S., he supported it annexing Canada so the Catholics fleeing the east coast for the west could set up a new colony there.

As an immigrant to Canada, he tried to convince Irish Catholics to work with the Protestant British to form a Confederation.

By 1857 McGee had moved to Montreal, thanks to the entreaties of the Irish community leaders there. He was back in the flock of the Catholic Church and proclaimed Canada a haven for Catholic rights. Then he worked to ensure it would stay that way.

In the winter of 1857, McGee was one of three members elected to represent Montreal in the Legislative Assembly. By 1863, he was in John A. Macdonald’s second administration and minister of agriculture, immigration and statistics.

In 1864 he was off to Charlottetown and then Quebec for conferences on a confederation. It was at Quebec that he brought forward a resolution guaranteeing the educational rights of religious minorities, especially in young Ontario.

McGee had gone from firebrand, British-hating revolutionary to an admirer of British parliament. By 1866, this moderation raised the ire of his Irish supporters in Montreal, many of whom hated the British. He didn’t attend the London conference on confederation in 1866; his alienation with the Irish meant he was now a liability.

He helped to create the Confederation of Canada in 1867 and remained optimistic despite other setbacks.

McGee ran in the Ontario election as a candidate for Prescott and lost.

Macdonald promised him a position post-politics in 1868.

As he faced his retirement from politics, he looked forward to developing his ideas of a “new nationality” and helping Canada to evolve to a different state than America.

One aspect that McGee saw as key was the establishment of a distinctiveCanadian art, especially literature.

He also believed one of the defining aspects of Canada was its continued relationship with the United Kingdom and suggested one solution was the establishment of a “kingdom on the St. Lawrence” with one of Queen Victoria’s sons as the sovereign. Not surprisingly, these views displeased some of his republican brethren.

He looked ahead “to the future of my adopted country with hope, though not without anxiety. I see in the not remote distance, one great nationality bound, like the shield of Achilles, by the blue rim of ocean. I see it quartered into many communities, each disposing of its internal affairs, but all bound together by free institutions, free intercourse and free commerce.”

But in the wee hours of April 7, 1868, McGee was shot and killed by an assassin on the steps of his boarding house, a week before his 43rd birthday — which as it turns out, was also the day he was buried.

An Irish immigrant, Patrick Whelan who had lived a rambling life, at one point living in Hamilton, was charged, convicted and hanged.

— Tom Villemaire is a writer based in Toronto and the Bruce Peninsula.Tom@historylab.ca